The present invention relates to a utility usage registering system, and more particularly to a system wherein inductive coupling is used to communicate utility usage information from a utility usage location to a portable utility usage registering device carried from location to location.
Utility meters are used by utility companies to register the amount of energy, water, etc. consumed by residential and commercial users. These utility meters generally are mechanical devices having a meter face with a number of dials disposed thereon which register utility usage. Such utility meters, most notably gas meters, are generally located within the private dwellings of the residential customers and are therefore not readily accessible to utility company employees. The meter readings must be periodically taken, however, in order to determine the amount of utility usage and thus the appropriate bill to be forwarded to the customer.
It has long been recognized that it would be desirable if the utility meter were mounted outside of the dwelling, so that the utility meter reader would have continual access to the meter and the customer would be free of the obligation to admit strangers into their homes. Unfortunately, it would be prohibitively expensive to replace existing utility meters with other meters capable of being read from outside the customer's residence
One other method of accomplishing the same goal would be to provide a retrofit device connectable to existing utility meters and designed to be read from outside of the customer's residence. In order to be successful, the retrofit device would have to be inexpensive to manufacture, simple to install and reliable in its operation.
Numerical displays tend to be rather expensive, and for this reason it would be desirable to avoid their use in any device for providing a utility reading outside of the customer's residence. One known manner of avoiding this is to simply provide a connector to which can be coupled a portable utility usage registering device carried by the meter reader. An electrical signal indicative of utility usage is then communicated directly to a portable recording device through a mating connector associated with the portable device. The patents to Sutherland, U.S. Pat. No. 3,748,654 and Eichacker, U.S. Pat. No. 3,006,712 both disclose systems wherein meter readings are communicated to a portable recording device through a connector mounted on the outside of a customer's dwelling. This approach not only eliminates the need for a numerical display on the outside of the customer's residence, but also eliminates transcribing errors which inevitably occur during human data entry operation. One problem with systems of this type is that the connectors used to couple the portable recording device to the meter are susceptible to corrosion, dirt , and mechanical breakage.
Other means of coupling the utility usage information to a remote utility usage registering device are also known. The patent to Ward et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,213,119 discloses a system including an optical communications link between the customers house and the portable utility usage registering device. The patents to Long, U.S. Pat. No. 3,414,676 and Glidden, U.S. Pat. No. 3,390,234 disclose systems wherein the meter reading is communicated over pre-existing telephone lines to a remote central station. The patents to Simciak, U.S. Pat. No. 4,031,513 and Rouse, U.S. Pat. No. 3,688,271 disclose systems wherein a radio link is used to communicate the meter reading information from the customer's dwelling to the portable utility usage registering device. Although all three types of systems avoid the need for a connector mounted outside a customer's residence, they nonetheless suffer from their own unique problems. None has been found to be entirely satisfactory due to cost, performance, or both.